


Right Hand Man

by mistyzeo



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Body Horror, Body Modification, Gen, Steampunk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2020-10-14 03:33:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20593994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistyzeo/pseuds/mistyzeo
Summary: Sherlock Holmes had uncovered most of my secrets within a month of our sharing digs, but he did not necessarily apply himself to teasing out the details of each one. He knew I had been in Afghanistan, that I had been injured, and the nature of my injury, but it was several years until he truly saw the extent of the reconstruction that had been done on my body.





	Right Hand Man

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gardnerhill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/gifts).

> This is very weird and experimental, so consider it as a piece of a larger puzzle!

Sherlock Holmes had uncovered most of my secrets within a month of our sharing digs, but he did not necessarily apply himself to teasing out the details of each one. He had more tact and discretion than I tend to give him credit for. He knew I had a habit of risking my meagre pension on the turf, but did not inquire into which races I was particularly vulnerable to. He knew my preference for wine and brandy, but made no allusions to my aversion to morphine. He knew I had been in Afghanistan, that I had been injured, and the nature of my injury, but it was several years until he truly saw the extent of the reconstruction that had been done on my body.

The injury itself was hard to miss. In public I wore a glove to hide the unnatural color of the hand beneath (indeed it took me several weeks to feel comfortable taking off the glove at Baker Street) but at home I let the pale leather show. My right arm and hand moved normally, could grip a pen, a walking stick, or my service revolver, but the mechanism that powered it was entirely unnatural. Holmes could have made educated guesses– not that he would call them "guesses"– about how far the contraption extended, but he did not mention it. His inherent politeness managed to override his natural curiosity, but of course the moment the matter was game for conversation, he took his chance.

It happened about three years into our friendship, on a cold night in November. We were in Salisbury, investigating the disappearance of a young girl, Eliza Honeycut, and our trail had led us to the old barn on a farm well past the edge of town. Holmes believed Eliza was inside, and had arranged for the person he believed responsible, a disgraced business partner of her father, to be occupied at a pub several miles away. Still, he was wary of rushing into danger, uncertain of how many interested parties there were.

My heart was in my throat as we approached the heavy door. We were under a new moon, and Holmes had shuttered his dark lantern as we moved slowly along the side of the building; my eyes had adjusted as much as they would and I could just see his outline. More visible was the fog of his exhale in the cold. He had just reached the corner of the barn when his foot met gravel: the crunch of it rang out like a gunshot. There was barking within, and Holmes and I froze.

"I should have expected a dog," he murmured. "Watson, can you tell if it is chained?"

We listened, but the barking had ceased. There was no sound of metal dragging along the ground.

"Is there another way in?" I asked.

We looked up at the building, but only the hay loft door presented itself. There was no way for us to get up there.

"Well," said Holmes, "I do not hear the farmer coming out to confront us."

"Onward," I agreed.

Holmes has no great fear of dogs, nor do I, but they are nevertheless not to be fooled with. We moved quickly: Holmes to pull at the handle, and I ready with my service revolver. It wasn't that I wanted to shoot the dog, but if it were not chained we would not take any chances.

The dog came at us at once, growling and barking, and it lunged at Holmes first. He put his arms up to protect himself, but I pushed him aside, reaching out with my unnatural arm.

My arm does many things: the most wondrous is that it it gives me feedback as regards pressure. In other words, I can feel touch. It does not, however, register pain. At first, as the dog's teeth sank into my arm, I thought this was splendid. I could take the bite and not be any worse for wear. That was a damn fool mistake, of course. As soon as the dog had me in its grip it began to shake its head, and my arm, designed for daily use and not for hard wear and tear like this, was ripped loose.

My fingers went dead at once, and my revolver clattered to the ground. I was lucky it didn't go off and shoot me or Holmes dead. I tried grabbing the dog's head with my other hand, but it pulled again and my sleeve tore, and my arm was pulled half off. The electric plugs that linked my arm to the muscles in my shoulder popped free; the sensation was similar to having skin torn away, or so I imagined. I shouted aloud in agony, half wishing the dog would finish the job and half praying Holmes would shoot it before it managed to.

Holmes had vanished from my side, but he was back in a moment with a riding whip. A single swing in the dog's direction made contact and it let go of my arm with a yelp. Holmes stepped in front of me, brandishing the whip, and the dog chose the open barn door rather than try its luck again. It ran off into the night, and I sank to my knees, clutching my arm to my side.

"Watson," Holmes said, turning to me.

"Is she here?" I asked through my teeth.

"I think–"

"Get her," I said. "Get what we came for. I'll live."

"You–"

"_Holmes_."

"Right," he said, and turned away. I bowed my head. His footsteps went around behind me and then I heard him climbing up the ladder into the loft. I heard his voice, a low, gentle murmur, and the sound of someone responding. She _was_ here. Thank _God_.

I managed to get to my feet, holding my arm tight against my side. My greatcoat was torn and would have to be mended. Perhaps replaced. My shoulder felt as though hot knives were being dug into it. The connections had been disrupted in my mechanical apparatus and needed to be adjusted immediately. Something else was wrong in the machinery, but I couldn't tell quite yet what it was over the agony of the misaligned ports.

Outside, there were voices and lights, and I turned to face them as they approached. Friend or foe? I had picked up my revolver and was ready for it to turn ugly once more, but the voices became familiar as they approached. It was the local force: Constables Bartholomew and Church were swinging lanterns and calling out to us.

"Holmes has her," I said.

"Thank God," Bartholomew said. "We heard the dog and took that as our signal to come."

"Very sensible, I'm sure," Holmes called. He was coming back down the ladder slowly, with the little girl over his shoulder, one arm tight around her middle. "Miss Honeycut is quite well and ready to go home. You may certainly arrest Mr Mathers on charge of kidnapping and extortion. Miss Honeycut will tell you the particulars, after a warm meal and a good night's sleep."

"The lads are at the pub now," Bartholomew said. "We only have to give the word."

"Then by all means, Constable, give it. Church, you will take the girl back to her parents. Go, we have kept them waiting long enough. Watson and I will follow."

Constable Church accepted the armful of child, and Holmes turned to me. "Do you need a hospital or will the local physician do?" he asked, his voice lowered to a private tone.

"The only hospital that can do me any good is the London," I said, "and I'm not getting on a train now, like this."

"Certainly not," said he. "Will our rented room suffice?"

"I think so. I don't need a country barber peering at me, though."

"Quite right." He hesitated. The constables' rapid pace had taken them well out of earshot. "Is there anything I…?"

"No." I hugged my dangling arm closer to my body. "Nothing."

In the dark it was difficult to say exactly what expression passed over Holmes's face. Then he turned on his heel and marched away down the path, opening his lantern up to guide us home.

The walk back to the inn was torture: every step I took jostled the loose connections in my arm, sending electric shocks arcing through my body. I gritted my teeth against the animal sounds that threatened to escape. I was flushed and short of breath by the time we reached the edge of town, and then I was subject to the casual scrutiny of people we passed. I kept my head down, my face hidden by my hat, my eyes fixed on Holmes's heels. As we walked, I felt the cold in the air sharpen, and soon little pinpricks of ice were landing on my exposed neck. It was snowing.

"We got her just in time," Holmes remarked, pulling open the inn door for me. His hand on my good elbow guided me through the dining room and up the stairs. "I hate to think of her in that barn at all, but in this weather…" We reached our shared room and he unlocked the door. "There you are, my dear fellow. Safe and sound."

The room was warm, the fire banked in the grate and our two beds with their linens turned down. Holmes's work on the case–maps, the ransom note, the list of people the child had been in contact with– was scattered over the table by the window; my toiletries were still on the basin stand. Holmes removed his hat and coat and went to stir the fire.

I tried to let go of my arm to take my ruined coat off and the spike of agony went through me again; still the misaligned ports sang with electricity. Seeing what I was doing, Holmes returned, took the back of my coat in his hands and helped me get it down my arms. I managed to find my voice again. "I have– Holmes, I have to get it off. You don't have to watch. You should go meet the constables and make your report to the superintendent."

"Don't be ridiculous," Holmes said, turning away to hang up my coat. "You can't remove the damn thing alone." He hesitated. "That is, if you want help."

I didn't say anything. I started on my waistcoat instead with my one working hand; once it was unbuttoned, Holmes pulled it down while I maneuvered my arm out of the hole. He slid my braces off my shoulders while I unfastened my collar and torn shirt. Even in agony I could feel the warmth of his presence. His hands were gentle even though they couldn't soothe me. I gritted my teeth against the pain as the shirt came off and disappeared. Wildly I hoped he was treating my clothes with respect and not just throwing them aside.

I started to unbuckle the belt that kept my shoulder harness in place, but as soon as it loosened the arm slipped again, sending shocks through the muscles of my back and chest. Holmes heard me yelp and reappeared at once, hovering.

"What can I do?" he asked.

"Hold my elbow," I said, and he took hold of the arm. Its leather casing hid the hard metal and gears beneath, but it wasn't the same color as my living skin. In Holmes's hands, it looked even more false than usual. "Hold it up as I… disengage the mechanism."

He nodded, holding still, and I was able to loosen the belt again. The end of the strap slipped away under my good arm and I peeled the soft leather shoulder cap off and set it aside on the table.

This exposed the ball joint that plugged into the live flesh and muscle of my shoulder. Holmes stared. Wires ran from the inside of the arm to the ports surrounding my socket; these powered the gears and springs that made the arm move. Wincing, I began to unplug them, and with each disengagement the pain lessened. Then I had to unfasten the spring hooks to free myself of the inanimate apparatus. When they were finally all un-sprung, I fixed my hand around the hard metal ball of my shoulder and pulled; it came out of its port with a pop and my arm came away from my body.

Holmes held it reverently, gazing with amazement at the machinery that made me whole. Then his eyes moved to the empty hollow of my shoulder, and I watched his face close down. My heart sank.

"Put it on the table," I said, "and you may rest assured I am much better now. I'm sure it just needs a little adjustment and then I shall be right as rain again."

"This doesn't look like a little adjustment will serve," Holmes said, peering at the wires again. "That damned dog has bent the frame and who knows what else. The leather is punctured. You're fortunate you have no blood to lose."

I looked more closely. The shoulder frame was indeed deviating from its usual straight lines. I sighed. "Put it on the table," I said again.

Holmes obeyed, and without my input began to unfasten the long line of hook-and-eye closures that held the leather casing in place. This row of fastenings ran down the underside of the arm from the armpit to the wrist. It was very thin leather, intended to mimic live skin as closely as possible, and the bend of the elbow was supplemented with vulcanized rubber. As Holmes peeled back the sheath, the mechanical insides of my arm were exposed, all the way down to the wrist. The hand was covered by a separate glove, also fastened down the thumb with little metal closures. Holmes left this in place as he removed the rest of the skin on my arm.

"See," he said, turning the arm over, "the elbow has also been damaged. The hinge is cracked."

"I shall have to send it away," said I. "The mechanical prosthetics engineering department at the London Hospital–"

"Don't be ridiculous," Holmes interrupted. "I shall certainly fix it for you. You wouldn't be indisposed like this if it weren't for me."

I snorted. "Holmes, this is not your doing."

"No, no," he said, waving me away, "of course not. You are very noble and brave and more besides, but…" He looked sheepish. "Well, Watson, if chivalry won't convince you, would it make you feel better if I admitted I'd always wanted to get my hands on one of these?"

That made more sense. I sighed. "It does, a little," I said. "But you must promise to fix it, not just fiddle with it for days on end and then forget about it."

"Believe me, my dear fellow," he said, giving me and my empty shoulder a significant look. "I promise."

It was strange to be standing there in front of Holmes in my vest with only my left hand still attached. I had been fitted with the mechanical prosthesis so soon after my amputation that I never bothered to think of myself as a one-armed man. With the amount of morphine I'd had pumped into my body, I barely remembered the six sequential surgeries that had been required to remove my shattered humerus and implant the electrodes that allowed the mechanical arm to operate. I didn't even really remember the pain of the rehabilitation, but I suspected that was my mind protecting itself. One person could not hold the memory of such agony. So to only have one hand to move was unfamiliar: it was only as though my original arm had been injured, not wholly destroyed.

But there lay my arm upon the table, its inner workings exposed. I felt strangely naked to be looking into the springs and wires, and to have Holmes looking at them as well.

"Holmes," I said, "The Honeycuts will be waiting for you to give them the full story."

"Right," he said, reaching for his hat again. "Of course. I'll… I'll leave you to it."

"Make my excuses," I said.

He nodded, pulled his coat around his shoulders, and went out again.

Despite the fire, a chill was setting in. It was the shock of the injury, I reminded myself. Even though I was part automaton, the rest of me was still subject to the frailties of humanity. I retrieved my dressing gown from the rack by my bed, grateful that it was not still inside my valise. How would I get that open with only one hand? But then I was thwarted, holding the dressing gown in my live hand and uncertain how exactly I was going to get it up that arm and over my shoulders.

A few minutes of struggling managed to get it draped around both shoulders, starting on the empty one, and then my arm down the sleeve. But then, of course, I couldn't get it tied. I sat down on my bed, feeling defeated. Even when I'd been laid low with the fever, sick for months in the hospital and thrown upon the mercy of nurses, at least I'd been able to tie my dressing gown. What good was a man without his hands? What good a doctor? What good was I to Holmes, only half realized? I'd protected him from the dog, but at the cost of my own usefulness.

We had spent a series of sleepless nights on this case already, and it all caught up to me at once as I sat there feeling sorry for myself. One moment I was upright, and the next thing I knew I was being awoken by Holmes's return.

"Oh, my dear fellow," said he. He was flushed with triumph and dusted with snow. "How are you feeling?"

I struggled to sit up again, pushing up on one elbow and forgetting the other wasn't available. I tipped sideways, cursing. Holmes shucked his coat and hung up his hat.

"Watson, may I… offer you assistance?"

"Very well," I said, holding out my hand. He took it and pulled smartly, and I was brought right up to my feet. I was still wearing my boots and my toes were freezing. The dressing gown hung limply off my body. Holmes reached for the empty sleeve and corrected the drape, crossing the lapels and finding the belt.

"I almost said 'give you a hand'," he quipped as he tied the knot.

"For heaven's sake," I muttered. My heart felt like it was in my heels.

Holmes caught sight of my face, perhaps, for her drew back with some amount of contrition and patted my lapels gently. "I beg your pardon," he said, "it was very uncouth."

"You're forgiven," said I, sitting once more to untie my boot laces. "Did they arrest Mathers?"

Holmes allowed the topic change and moved to divest himself of his own jacket and boots. "With gusto," he said. "Mathers was quite drunk, the result of a little work by our sympathisers and his own inability to resist a game of cards. When Church told him we'd picked up the girl already he tried to run, but the announcement that he'd abducted her turned most of the pub against him. He hardly made it two steps." As he talked he moved around the room, putting on his dressing gown, taking our boots and lining them up by the door, fetching his slippers and mine.

"Good," I said. "At least some of the people in this town have a sense of decency."

"Indeed." He put my slippers in front of the chair by the fire. "Miss Honeycut is home with her parents, safe and sound. I didn't go in and see her again, but I will need to speak with her tomorrow about the matter. Won't you come sit down?"

I went. I was feeling considerably better, having slept, but could not forget my empty sleeve. My shoulder felt naked, empty, and cold. I put my feet in my slippers and tried to sit naturally.

"Brandy?" he asked.

"Thank you."

He handed me the glass, and it shouldn't have felt strange to hold it in my left hand, but it was the only option. I sipped it slowly, letting the liquor sting my tongue and warm my throat.

Then he went to sit at the table, where my disembodied arm rested. Clearing aside the detritus from the case, he produced his magnifying lens and began to look closely at the damaged frame. We were silent for a while: he peering, me watching him peer. My stomach felt strange. The snow outside was coming down hard and fast, the tiny flakes tinkling against the window panes.

"I think we will be stuck here for a while," he said, without having looked up. "The trains were already being delayed at the station. I think they will take good care of us though." He looked up finally. "Watson, will you tell me how this works?"

Having more information on a topic than he did was so unusual that I found myself rising to join him at the table to explain it.

"This," I said, indicating the shoulder ball joint, "is where it plugs in–"

"From the beginning, my dear fellow," Holmes insisted. "What is it made of?"

"The frame is aluminium, the springs and gears are copper, and the wires are copper insulated in rubber. Holmes, I am a doctor but I am not an engineer; this is quite outside my area of expertise."

"But you wear it every day."

"That may be, but how much do you know about your _own_– never mind, don't answer that."

Holmes raised his eyebrows at me but did not insist. "How does it work, then? How do you control it?"

"It… plugs in… into the muscles in my shoulder and my chest," I explained. "I think about moving them, and the arm moves." I pointed to the connection points, each of which corresponded with a port on my body. "These tell the arm how to move: direction, force, flex or extend."

"Does it have an internal power source?"

"Here," I said, indicating the battery that was nestled between the strong springs representing the biceps and triceps. "But I only recharge it monthly. It uses a very little bit of power."

"You _recharge_ it? How?"

"I unplug the lamp in my bedroom and plug it in instead."

Holmes blinked.

"Overnight, usually. I try to get it in between cases, when I can count on a full night's sleep."

"Good lord, I had no idea."

"No, I… preferred it that way."

Holmes's mouth twitched, almost a smile. "How very mysterious of you, Doctor Watson," said he.

I shrugged my good shoulder. "There are still things you don't know about me."

"I'm sure that's not true."

"Well," I admitted, "now that you've seen the inside of my very arm there isn't much more to be coy about."

That time he did smile, meeting my eyes, and when he touched the arm again I could have sworn I felt it.

Sherlock Holmes amused himself with the experimental repair of my mechanical arm for the better part of the evening, and I found a strange enjoyment in watching him work and giving him advice as he took things apart to straighten them out and open them up. We sent down for supper at some point, and the girl who brought it up left wide-eyed with curiosity that she dared not satisfy at the risk of offending her guests. There would be gossip downstairs: not only were we the great detective from London, but we were half machine as well. I had to imagine there were some people around who at least knew of people with enhancements such as mine. The science was certainly developed enough to reach the English countryside, just as railways had spread.

It was near midnight, though, when he finally began to droop: the excitement of a new pursuit not enough to keep him going after such a trying case. I finally had to give him a nudge under the table to get his attention.

"It will be here tomorrow," I said.

"And so will we," he agreed, looking out the window over my shoulder at the snow. "Do you suppose the blacksmith will have parts for this magnificent thing?"

"If not, he might be able to make them," I said. I felt warm and sleepy. "Think on it tomorrow. I promise I'll remind you," I said, as he opened his mouth to protest. "It'll be hard to forget, like this." My empty sleeve flapped.

"Quite so," he agreed.

Cleaning my teeth with my off hand felt strange and uncoordinated, but I managed a good enough scrub. I let Holmes help me into my nightshirt and removed my trousers one-handed underneath it while he busied himself with his own toilet. I was not used to sleeping without my arm, and I worried I would roll over onto my empty side in the night and not be able to right myself. Holmes offered to solve this problem with a mound of pillows. He tucked me in more gently than was really necessary, but we were both tired so I let it slide. He turned out the light finally, and I listened to him climb into bed.

"Holmes," I said, into the dark. "Thank you."

"Whatever for?" he asked.

"For trying to fix it."

"My dear fellow," he said earnestly. "Thank _you_ for letting me try. I hope you'll still be grateful tomorrow when I ask to plug it back in and my ignorance shocks you. Quite literally."

"_Holmes_," I scolded, but I was laughing.

"Forgive me," he said, not contrite at all.

I snorted and tucked my one warm arm under the blankets. "We shall see."  



End file.
